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Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North) : Does the Secretary of State agree that his statement does not represent an adequate transport policy for London? The red routes will encourage more traffic to come in and out of central London. Does he agree that powers are already available to prevent bus lanes from being clogged and that the red routes are a precursor of future motorway plans? Is he aware that in my constituency there is overwhelming opposition not only to major road building, but to the demolition of the Archway island, the widening of Highbury corner and the red routes because they will merely bring more traffic into the area? We require a transport policy for London that will reduce the number of cars and freight vehicles on the road, and that puts public money into public transport, and we require a democratic form of decision making in London rather than the traffic dictator whom the Secretary of State expects to appoint.
Mr. Parkinson : I have no plans to appoint a traffic dictator. The traffic director will be responsible for the
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management of the red routes. I note what the hon. Gentleman has said, and, not for the first time, I totally disagree with him.Mr. Cyril D. Townsend (Bexleyheath) : Would not my right hon. Friend be wise to open again the question of a tunnel under Oxleas wood, which borders my constituency? As a strong supporter of the east London river crossing, I must say that £10 million, as recommended by the inspector, to save an ancient oak woodland and a site of special scientific interest is a small sum.
Mr. Parkinson : As I said earlier, the matter was considered carefully over a long period by my predecessor and by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the then Secretary of State for the Environment. They took a decision, and I have no plans to reopen the matter.
Mr. Harry Ewing (Falkirk, East) : As I represent a constituency north of London, I have listened with great interest to the statement and to the exchanges. Is the Secretary of State aware that, now and again, the London transport system actually works? Today, for example, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Staffordshire (Mrs. Heal), having driven a coach and horses through the Tory majority in
Mid-Staffordshire, has arrived at the Palace of Westminster after having travelled through the traffic of London without too much trouble. The greatest hold-up that my hon. Friend has experienced is here in the Palace of Westminster. Would it not have been better for the Secretary of State to have spent today playing with his Dinky toys? We could have heard the statement tomorrow.
Mr. Parkinson : That was a rather elaborate joke, but it was rather better than most of the hon. Gentleman's jokes.
Mr. John Maples (Lewisham, West) : Many hundreds, if not thousands, of people in Lewisham will be grateful to my right hon. Friend to know that they are not to have a new four-lane highway driven through their neighbourhood, with all the attendant noise and pollution. I am grateful that my right hon. Friend has responded so positively to their representations. Does he agree that the Opposition's churlish response to his statement makes one wonder whether their opposition to the road proposals was ever sincere? My right hon. Friend seems to have shot their fox pretty spectacularly, and they obviously resent that.
Mr. Parkinson : One of the strange features of the Opposition is that they spent their time coming to see me and saying that they hoped that I would reject the roads, yet when I do they accuse me of electioneering. We have taken sensible and carefully considered decisions, and we have listened to the people.
Mr. Matthew Carrington (Fulham) : My right hon. Friend will know how grateful my constituents are to him and to my hon. Friend the Minister for Roads and Traffic for abandoning the western environmental improvement route, which has for so long blighted west London and my constituency in particular. My constituents are keen that the Chelsea-Hackney line which is misnamed and should be called the Fulham-Hackney line because it starts in my constituency--should be built as rapidly as possible as the congestion and overloading on the District line are serious.
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In the meantime, will my right hon. Friend consider an urgent appraisal for investment to be made in the District line to improve the services there?Mr. Parkinson : I hope that my hon. Friend will sort out the matter with our right hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Mr. Scott). I am happy to settle for the name that has been agreed between them--always assuming that that is the chosen line. There is a huge programme of investment in improving the rolling stock on the existing lines, including the District line, which is being pressed forward now.
Mr. Humfrey Malins (Croydon, North-West) : My right hon. Friend's statement that there will be no new road in Norbury will be greatly welcomed by Norbury residents. They are grateful to him and to my hon. Friend the Minister for Roads and Traffic for listening so carefully to the representations, including those from Norbury councillors. In the long run, many of us in Croydon look forward to the day when the underground will extend as far as us.
Mr. Parkinson : I thank my hon. Friend for his kind remarks. [Interruption.] For obvious reasons, I shall keep my answers short.
Sir Philip Goodhart (Beckenham) : I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his constructive and sensible statement. May I press him to consult our right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary on the recruitment of more traffic wardens as the Metropolitan police reckon that they need 50 per cent. more wardens to make the red routes work? Will he also promise action on haphazard road works which add so much to traffic delays in central London?
Mr. Parkinson : There is a shortage of traffic wardens, with a substantial number of vacancies. I am advised that if we extend their powers and authorise them to order the
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removal of cars, the towing away of cars and wheel clamping, it will increase their job satisfaction and make recruitment easier. We must hope that that is the case.Ms. Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) : Does the Secretary of State accept that everything he has said today reeks of political defeat? Does he understand that everything he was forced to do in rejecting the road building schemes could have been done far earlier, thus preventing blighting, saving millions of pounds and enabling real progress to be made in solving the traffic chaos of this capital city? Does he accept that his list of public transport proposals does not impress because he has rehearsed them all in the House before? The technical feasibility of many of them has already been approved. As my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) has said, what they lack is public money.
Will the Secretary of State at last give hope to Londoners by committing the £3 billion of public money that would have been spent on those roads to public transport, thus relieving the pressure on the fares of the travelling public and easing congestion on our roads?
Mr. Parkinson : I find it extraordinary that the hon. Lady comes to see me and says that she hopes that we shall listen to what Londoners say, yet when we do says that it is a political climbdown. That shows how paper thin the Opposition's attachment to democracy is. On the second point, I must make the point that the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) clearly did not understand. We are talking about specific assessment studies on four areas only. The broad arrangements for London's transport improvements are in addition to that and huge programmes are in hand. Just because consultants include proposals in assessment studies, it does not mean that the Government have earmarked money for them. There is a long way to go before we allocate any money and, as I have pointed out already, the proposals would not have been implemented until the turn of the century. The hon. Lady is, as usual, talking charming nonsense.
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Business of the House
5.9 pm
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Sir Geoffrey Howe) : With permission, Mr. Speaker, I shouldlike to make a statement about the rearrangement of business for tomorrow, Wednesday, 28 March.
The business for tomorrow will now be as follows : Timetable motion on the Social Security Bill, followed by progress on remaining stages of the Social Security Bill. Proceedings on the Bill will be brought to a conclusion on Tuesday 3 April.
Dr. John Cunningham (Copeland) : As even the Prime Minister recognised that the electors of Mid-Staffordshire were sending her a message, why have the Government deliberately delayed the keeper of that message for more than one and a half hours by putting on three statements today? Has not the graceless, churlish behaviour of the recently defeated Tory candidate in the by-election been matched by the Government's business managers this afternoon?
Is the Leader of the House aware that we deplore his abrupt announcement of a guillotine on the Social Security Bill tomorrow? Is it not outrageous, when the Government only last night tabled four new clauses and 37 amendments to this legislation--clauses and amendments which the House has never seen before--that they are now effectively pre-empting time in the debate and preventing my hon. Friends from moving Labour's amendments? Are they not simply doing this to prevent yet more embarrassing defections and votes against by their own supporters?
Sir Geoffrey Howe : The hon. Gentleman is quite wrong to make allegations of deliberate delay by the Government. We are continuing our calm conduct of Government business in making statements today, the first two of which have been welcomed by the House. The third had to be made now ; it could not be made tomorrow because it relates to tomorrow's business.
In due course, the hon. Member for Mid-Staffordshire (Mrs. Heal), who was elected in the by-election last week, will commence her brief stay in the House.
The timetable motion is designed to give rather more time than would have been available under the arrangements made through the usual channels. The amendments and new clauses tabled for discussion tomorrow are for the most part proposals produced in response to discussion in Committee. The time available will be entirely appropriate for their consideration.
Mr. Ian Gow (Eastbourne) : If the accusation made by the shadow Leader of the House should be valid, would that not be something that the House ought to take into account when it comes to consider whether to renew the televising of this place? Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that the timetable motion that he has announced will be greatly welcomed by Government Members?
Sir Geoffrey Howe : I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the welcome in the last part of his intervention. I make no comment on his first observation.
Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark and Bermondsey) : Does the Leader of the House not recognise that timetable motions at every opportunity are increasingly taking
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liberties with the House in general and individual Members in particular? Tomorrow's proposal not only carves out Opposition parties from being able to do their proper job on Report but is no doubt intended to carve out members of his own party who tried to amend the National Health Service and Community Care Bill last week and gave the Government a substantial shock. Will he agree that that has produced a response of even more autocratic behaviour by an ever more autocratic Government?Sir Geoffrey Howe : The hon. Gentleman has to try his best, but there is no foundation whatsoever for that interpretation. The Committee proceedings on this Bill proceeded in a normal, orderly fashion. They included consideration of no more than four new clauses. However, on Report the House is now required to deal with some 20 new clauses tabled at a very late stage by the Opposition against the background of a threat by Opposition Members to run the proceedings for 23 hours through the night. We are making a proposal to handle in an orderly fashion proposals that the House will need to consider and will be able to consider.
Mr. Andrew MacKay (Berkshire, East) : Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that many of us consider that the timetable motion on the Social Security Bill is a sensible way of proceeding? Is he aware, further, that most of us believe that the remarks by the shadow Leader of the House were entirely synthetic, when we recall the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) standing at the Dispatch Box when in government and moving five separate guillotine motions? Does he recall that, when I took my seat after a by-election victory under the last Labour Government, I was forced to wait until 6 o'clock in the evening?
Sir Geoffrey Howe : I am grateful for the support offered by my hon. Friend.
Mr. Bob Clay (Sunderland, North) : Will the Leader of the House admit that one of the major reasons for the decision to guillotine the business tomorrow is to avoid discussion of new clause 8, which is supported by Opposition Members and also by many Government Members? The new clause would provide compensation for British nuclear test veterans suffering from various cancers and for their dependants. Is it not the case that the Government, having filibustered that Bill out as a private Member's Bill earlier this month, are now having to resort to a guillotine motion to find other ways to prevent this from being debated and voted on, because they dare not risk even five minutes' discussion on the measure, so weak is their disgraceful position on the whole question?
Sir Geoffrey Howe : There is no foundation for that claim. The time that will be available for discussion of this Bill under the timetable motion will exceed that previously agreed through the usual channels. If the time is used sensibly, time will be devoted to the hon. Member's new clause as well as to other matters under consideration.
Mr. Nicholas Bennett (Pembroke) : Has my right hon. and learned Friend seen the reports in today's Daily Mirror and Morning Star in which the Labour party announced that an all-night sitting on the Social Security
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Bill was to take place tomorrow? Will he not accept, therefore, that these are bogus and synthetic objections to a very sensible proposal?Sir Geoffrey Howe : I entirely agree.
Mr. Alex Salmond (Banff and Buchan) : How can the Leader of the House justify a guillotine on the Social Security Bill when so many hon. Members want to explain to the Government how doubling the capital allowance on the poll tax without altering the taper will still leave people on tiny incomes qualifying for the tiniest of rebates? Will it not make it more difficult for the Secretary of State for Scotland to contribute to the debate to explain why reshuffling £4 million from his own budget can somehow be presented as a triumph over the Prime Minister?
Sir Geoffrey Howe : That would not arise in the course of this debate, in any event. I repeat that the time likely to be available for discussion under the timetable motion will exceed that agreed through the usual channels. That cannot be unreasonable.
NEW MEMBER
The following Member made the affirmation required by law : Mrs. Sylvia Lloyd Heal, for Mid-Staffordshire.
BILLS PRESENTED
Children and Young Persons(Protection from Tobacco)
Mr. Joe Ashton, supported by Mr. John Home Robertson, Sir George Young, Mr. Roger Sims, Mr. Alan Amos, Mr. John Bowis, Mr. Ronnie Fearn, Mrs. Maureen Hicks, Ms. Harriet Harman, Mr. Archy Kirkwood and Mr. Allen McKay, presented a Bill to increase the penalties for the sale of tobacco to persons under the age of 16 years ; to make illegal the sale of tobacco to such persons from vending machines ; to require local authorities to enforce those provisions and publish reports ; to prohibit the sale of unpackaged cigarettes ; to prohibit advertising of tobacco or tobacco sponsored events from retail premises ; to require the publication of warning statements on cigarette packages and in retail premises ; and for connected purposes : And the same was read the First time ; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 4 May and to be printed. [Bill 111.]
Community Charge (Landlord and Tenant)
Mr. John Greenway, supported by Mr. Dudley Fishburn, Sir Rhodes Boyson, Sir Hal Miller, Sir Michael Shaw, Mr. Michael Shersby, Sir John Wheeler, Sir Fergus Montgomery, Sir Hugh Rossi and Mr. Michael Alison, presented a Bill to require landlords to reduce the rent of a tenant by the proportion of rent previously contributed by the tenant towards the payment of domestic rates ; to give rent assessment committees the jurisdiction to hear and determine questions arising ; and for connected purposes : And at the same was read the First time ; and was ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 27 April and to be printed. [Bill 112.]
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Medical Services for Women5.18 pm
Ms. Dawn Primarolo (Bristol, South) : I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision with respect to medical services for women, including screening, well woman clinics and other services ; to amend the Abortion Act 1967 ; to make provision in respect of related duties and responsibilities of health authorities ; and for connected purposes.
The Bill is about women's health. A large part of women's experience of health care is linked to their role as child bearers, but since control over reproduction--contraception, pregnancy, fertility and child birth--has been vested in doctors, these normal processes have become highly mechanised in recent years, and women have been provided with little choice of the services they receive and from whom they receive them.
The National Health Service birth control service performs a vital role, but Tory cuts in the National Health Service have meant that birth control facilities are becoming increasingly inadequate. An effective policy should be based on appropriate education and advice. To ensure that the message gets across to those most at risk, the case for effective, safe contraception and family planning should be made in schools and encouraged through the media. It is important, however, that contraceptive advice should be available to all who need it. That means that it should not be limited to information only about invasive measures of control. Every woman should have appropriate access to confidential advice and free, safe contraception at local centres.
Infertility causes grave personal distress. As many as one couple in six are infertile. Many district health authorities do not hold infertility clinics separately from their routine gynaecological work load or fail to provide literature or counselling for patients. In many health districts, artificial insemination by donor is not available and in nearly half of those where it is available the service is run outside the National Health Service. Only one in vitro fertilisation unit is funded solely by the NHS. Women have a right to access to those facilites. Before they undergo elaborate tests for infertility, which are often distressing, sperm tests should be carried out on the men because those tests, unlike those for women, are relatively simple.
Maternity services are crucial to the provision of women's services. The creation of the National Health Service extended the rights of pregnant women, but to a large extent doctors have taken over the rights of women in the birth process. For well over 10 years, women have criticised the National Health Service maternity services for being insensitive to their needs and for being too technically orientated in normal pregnancies and births. Hospitals have responded, but women still complain about the fragmentation of ante-natal and delivery care. Different tasks are performed by different people. The woman is not treated as a whole person, and she rarely sees the same person twice. That makes it difficult for her to build up the necessary relationship of trust with her midwife.
There is also concern about the lack of information about the hazards of pregnancy, the obstetric techniques, the high level of technology used in pregnancy, labour and delivery, and the adoption of blanket, routine practices in hospitals. Of course there are circumstances in which
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technology is essential to the health of mother and baby. Also, many women find the use of technology reassuring and value the relief from pain that it can provide, but both positions must be respected. The woman must have the right to say how she wants her child delivered safely and confidently, within a caring, supportive framework.The skills of midwives should be used to the full in the interests of achieving a close, supportive relationship between the mother and the midwife. In an emergency, the midwife should be able to call upon hospital colleagues, a consultant obstetrician and, if necessary, a flying squad--an emergency ambulance fitted with the necessary equipment to get the mother to hospital.
Continuity of care should be provided by reorganising the way in which midwives work. When women attend appointments, there should be sufficient time for questioning and discussion in cheerful surroundings, with a play area provided for accompanying children. No procedures during child birth should be carried out without the specific consent of the mother, unless she is alone and there is an emergency. There should be a flexible discharge system appropriate to the needs of the woman. More research should be undertaken into post-natal depression.
Cancer screening is desperately important to women. There are long delays, sometimes of months, in smear test results, because of acute shortage of trained laboratory staff. Every month's delay increases the risk of advanced cervical cancer. The Tory record on cervical cancer offers practically no hope of an effective screening programme to help the 15,000 women who die from breast cancer each year. Yet 3, 000 with breast cancer and 1,000 with cervical cancer could be saved by proper screening.
We need an effective breast cancer screening, diagnosis and treatment service, meeting strict national technical and organisational standards. That should be provided by every health authority.
A properly resourced national cervical cancer screening programme, with computerised call and recall systems, should be set up in every health district to cover every woman at risk. All women should have the right to a smear test every three years. Mobile screening facilities should be provided in shopping centres, housing estates and workplaces, and women at work should be given paid time off to attend regular screening. The suffering and death of women from diseases which are detectable and curable, if diagnosed in their early stages, are totally unacceptable.
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At the centre of provision for well women in society is the key element of prevention provided through well woman centres. The philosophy behind the centres is the promotion of the well- being of the whole person, with the emphasis on encouraging women to be responsible for their own health. It is vital to ensure that health authorities provide well woman services to meet minimum standards in every health authority. Each authority should be required to provide a secure, attractive place for women to meet to talk about the many problems that they face, such as tranquilliser dependency, menopausal problems and the problems of still-birth and miscarriage. We need the reintroduction of hospital services run solely by women for women. Women should have the right to see a woman doctor. Well woman clinics can help in the development of self-help groups and are crucial to the future of women's health.Finally, I propose an amendment to the Abortion Act 1967. It is appalling that important and difficult decisions about their own fertility and about whether to continue with a pregnancy should be removed from the realm of women's choice and control, and should become a political battleground of the minority, causing distress, hardship and pain to many. The case for legal abortion has been made many times. The propect of forcing women into back-street abortions is beyond contemplation.
I propose that the time limit in the Abortion Act should be abolished, that the possibility of prosecution of doctors is removed and that the law in England and Wales is standardised with the law in Scotland. I commend the measure to the House in the name of women's health.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Ms. Dawn Primarolo, Mr. Frank Doran, Mrs. Teresa Gorman, Mrs. Alice Mahon, Mrs. Audrey Wise, Mr. Ian McCartney, Mr. Richard Caborn, Mrs. Maria Fyfe, Ms. Diane Abbott and Mr. Tony Banks.
Medical Services for Women
Ms. Dawn Primarolo accordingly presented a Bill to make provision with respect to medical services for women, including screening, well woman clinics and other services ; to amend the Abortion Act 1967 ; to make provision in respect of related duties and responsibilities of health authorities ; and for connected purposes : And the same was read the First time ; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 20 April and to be printed. [Bill 113.]
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Adjournment (Easter and Monday 7 May)
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That this House, at its rising on Thursday 5th April, do adjourn until Wednesday 18th April and, at its rising on Friday 4th May, do adjourn till Tuesday 8th May.-- [Mr. Greg Knight.]
5.30 pm
Mr. John Biffen (Shropshire, North) : I strongly support the motion and wish to speak to a task that I should like to consign to the Treasury Bench during those few valuable days. It relates to local authority finance. As a result of recent weeks, the House still has ringing in its ears the unfairnesses of the rating system. That unfairness is undoubtedly true. However, the system was accepted--albeit uneasily--by generations of politicians and was paid for, with anger and resignation, by succeeding generations of ratepayers. Its longevity can be measured by the fact that it originated from Elizabethan days.
My request is simple and in that context. It is the desire that the inequities and injustices of the community charge shall not become perpetuated through time by weary resignation on the part of either the electorate or Parliament. I do not think that the electorate will be disposed to accept it with weary resignation.
Whatever the virtues of the community charge--I believe that they are substantial--none the less, I limit my remarks to saying that they are vitiated by a lack of regard for the principle of the ability to pay. The community charge needs to be reconsidered, judged by that canon. It needs to be reconsidered in respect of the abatements made and the effectiveness of the transitional arrangements for those who have a sharply enhanced commitment. Finally, it needs a reconsideration that will set aside the flat-rate principle and relate the charge to a graduated system under which the higher the income, the more will be paid.
Those principles should be embodied in a review to be undertaken by the Government. That review should be undertaken speedily. Hence, it is relevant to the Easter recess. Above all, that review should be undertaken in a spirit of calm and reasoned judgment, and that is why an argument addressed to my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House is so relevant.
5.32 pm
Rev. Martin Smyth (Belfast, South) : It is a privilege to be called to speak in the Easter Adjournment debate because for many people Easter symbolises hope. The Secretary of State for Employment made a statement earlier about training and could not give an immediate answer when asked why his statement would not apply to Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland Office seems to be in orbit somewhere outside the House.
You will be aware, Madam Deputy Speaker, that some weeks ago I asked the Leader of the House whether the Government would oppose the private Member's Bill that was introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Londonderry, East (Mr. Ross), which sought to restore the right of this Chamber, after 18 years of limbo, to legislate for Northern Ireland by primary legislation in this House rather than by the obscene Order in Council, which does not allow us to examine legislation. On that occasion, the response was that we should have to wait till Friday. When
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Friday came, what we had suspected would happen did happen. The Whips objected and the private Member's Bill did not make any progress.Today, therefore, I ask that the Easter period brings hope for Northern Ireland on two levels. The first relates to security. Last week in London the President of Czechoslovakia revealed something about the trade in Semtex from Libya to terrorist organisations. Last weekend the people in Ballymena and Castlederg again suffered carnage. I therefore make the plea that the security forces in Northern Ireland should be given the same latitude as was manifested last summer when they contained a planned terrorist campaign that would have brought mayhem to the Province, and that they be given a more active role.
In making that plea, I ask that hon. Members who sometimes join the media in expressing more concern for the perpetrators of violence than for its victims give some consideration to the members of the security services in Northern Ireland and to the civilians of Northern Ireland who have been such victims.
I shall never forget the impression that was made on me during my by- election campaign when I met a member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary who had been mutilated in a bomb explosion in County Tyrone, yet years afterwards there was a serenity in his being that challenged me. That is reflected in all the people of Northern Ireland--those in the security services and civilians--who have turned tragedy into triumph as they have manifested courage and forgiveness.
Secondly, I draw the attention of the House again to the decision of the Supreme Court in Dublin. We in this House were led to believe that the Anglo-Irish Agreement had been honourably worked out by two Governments who understood the issues. We in the Unionist party had never been under any misapprehension about the use of language. We were told in the House that for the first time the status of Northern Ireland was guaranteed. However, if one looks back to the Sunningdale conference of 1974, one can read the two declarations : first, that "the Irish Government fully accepted and solemnly declared that there could be no change in the status of Northern Ireland until a majority of the people of Northern Ireland desired a change in that status."
Beside that is the declaration :
"The British Government solemnly declared that it was, and would remain, their policy to support the wishes of the majority of the people of Northern Ireland. The present status of Northern Ireland is that it is part of the United Kingdom."
In the Dail on that occasion, the former Taoiseach said : "The Government were well aware that differences exist in the constitutional law of the Republic of Ireland and of the United Kingdom as to the status of Northern Ireland but they considered that it would not be helpful to debate those constitutional differences." The Taoiseach then referred to
"the de facto status of Northern Ireland"
within the constitution of the Republic of Ireland.
When the Anglo-Irish Agreement was signed at Hillsborough, we were assured that the status of Northern Ireland was accepted, but there is no definition of that status in article 1. I remind the House that two agreements were signed on that occasion. Despite the number of times that this has been emphasised, I am amazed by the extent to which the general public and Members of Parliament have missed that fact. I repeat that two agreements were signed. One was signed by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
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and by the An Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland. That was the British agreement. The Republic of Ireland agreement was signed by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and by the An Taoiseach of Ireland. That difference was accepted by our Government.We know that the then Cabinet Secretary, Robert Armstrong, confessed in Australia that in more than one place he had developed a habit of being economical with the truth. Churchill may have used other English language to describe it when he spoke of terminological inexactitudes. There is no excuse now for the Government, the House or the nation to be in any ambiguity about the correct position. In the Supreme Court we had it spelt out abundantly clearly. The wiliness of Dr. FitzGerald who saw the agreement as an aspiration has now been exposed. The Supreme Court made it abundantly plain that the agreement has legal force and is a constitutional imperative. I appreciate that we are asked to keep our speeches concise and that others wish to speak in this Adjournment debate. I shall close by referring to an article in the Irish Times on 26 March. We were reminded that
"Fianna Fail's first policy objective is the reunification of Ireland. Fine Gael's subtitle is The United Ireland Party' something more than a desired aspiration' This State has no idle, vague ambition to exercise authority over Northern Ireland. It is legally obliged to seek to give effect to that authority to which it lays claim."
In the Viewpoint column of the Belfast Evening Telegraph on Monday evening, we were reminded :
"It is not the Unionists who put the obstacle of the constitutional claim in place in 1937."
The solemn international agreement of 1925 was unilaterally set aside by the Fianna Fail Government, under de Valera, who introduced that new constitution.
We plead with the House and the Government to give Northern Ireland its proper place within the Kingdom, remove any constitutional ambiguity and govern us as part of the Kingdom.
5.41 pm
Mr. Patrick Cormack (Staffordshire, South) : I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to speak briefly in this debate. I am between meetings of the New Building Sub-Committee of the Services Committee, in which I know that my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House has a particular interest. I wish to make a plea to my right hon. and learned Friend on a different subject. Will he have the earliest and most earnest discussions with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on a subject which is exercising the minds of people throughout the country --the community charge, or poll tax? I speak as a long-standing and consistent opponent of the legislation. Without any recrimination, I urge my right hon. and learned Friend to reconsider the tax. It has been said frequently and with accuracy that the introduction of any new tax is a difficult process. That is certainly the case with the community charge. What matters to our constituents who have to pay the tax is the amount that they are called on to pay. I believe that the tax is fundamentally unsound and unfair, in that it is a
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flat-rate and regressive tax, but even those problems could be overcome if the amount that people were asked to pay was much smaller.I have asked my right hon. and learned Friend in business questions and on other occasions to think again about the cost of education. If the cost of education, or even just teachers' salaries, were removed from local government and given to central Government, the poll tax or community charge would be reduced dramatically. Instead of paying about £330, my constituents would pay about £200 less, or perhaps an even lower sum.
I could adduce many arguments in favour of taking education out of the community charge, but I shall restrict myself to a few because I wish to be brief, and to take no more than about three minutes. The Government have rightly made education more of a national concern. We have the national curriculum and the possibility of schools opting out. It is conceivable, but not likely, that within the decade a considerable number of schools will no longer be under the jurisdiction of local authorities.
For the foreseeable future, we shall have a declining young population. Therefore, increasingly those who pay the poll tax or community charge will not benefit directly from education in the way that they benefit from other local authority services. Logic and equity both point in one direction : we should remove the burden of education from local government and give it to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
None of us in the House is completely stupid, so we know that education must be paid for. However, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has many opportunities of raising revenue, as we have been reminded during the past week. If education were removed from the responsibility of local authorities, it would have a dramatic effect. It would have a dramatic political effect on the Government, which I would welcome. I am sure that hon. Members from all parties who are worried, as I am, about the bills that people will have to pay would welcome anything that would reduce the bills significantly. It is no good the Government tinkering at the edge or providing extra money here and there. It has been calculated that, if the Government gave another £3 billion to £4 billion between this year and next, the present level could be maintained. That would be wholly unacceptable. Therefore, let us deal with the matter and grasp this nettle. Will my right hon. and learned Friend take my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on one side this very night and urge upon her the course that I recommend?
5.46 pm
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